Black Market - Jamaica

Thanks to my sister, I was reminded of one of the most naive and probably the stupidest thing I've ever done overseas...

When I was 14 (my sister 16) we went to Jamaica with my dad and his friends because one of them was getting married there. Since we were the only "kids" and my dad had all his buddies there, we were pretty much on our own for the duration while he and his friends did more adult-like activities. I was completely naive to the whole 3rd world country thing. I had never been to one before this and in my tiny head I assumed everywhere was probably close to USA and Australia. So here's the story my sister reiterated to me yesterday (of which I don't remember a smidgen of - which worries me for other reasons.)

Apparently we wanted to go into town, so we were trying to find a taxi. There weren't any at the moment, but this guy in a random car pulled over and asked us if we were looking for a ride to go to town. My sister asks "How much to Negril?" and he replied with a good price (how my sister knew what a good price is is beyond me). SO WE GOT IN HIS CAR. Yep. 14 and 16 year old American girls just got into a random guys car for a ride to a different town in a 3rd world country with no one else knowing where they went. Now, my dad had given us American money so we had to exchange it to use it in town, but all the banks were closed. So this guy took us to a back woods place and said he would exchange it for us. He took our money, got out of the car and met with some other people, exchanged the money, and came back. He gave us the money and then brought us to town. According to my sister, it was a good exchange rate. So we just got in a car with a stranger in a 3rd world country without anyone knowing where we went and were taken to the black market to exchange our money. I'm actually a little angry with myself that I could have been that stupid. And I can't help but wonder how my sister could possibly know what a good price is to town and know what a good exchange rate is for US dollars to Jamaican but somehow not really know how dangerous that was at the time? We were extremely lucky this guy didn't take advantage of how completely naive we were.

Another random guy tried to get us to come to some party later on in the evening (again I don't remember this). We didn't think it was a good idea to go to that...

"Twinkie Cakes with Ham Inside"

Thanks to my sister's reminder, I thought I'd add this post her.

For the longest time I refused to call "Pronto Pups" (aka "Corn Dogs") by their those names. I disliked eating anything with the name "Dog" or "Pup" in the title because it felt like I was eating someone's pet. Since I was already familiar with Hostess Twinkies because my sister and I (every once in a blue moon) got to get a treat at the gas station. I always got 1 of 3 things. My first choice was always the chocolate hostess pie, second was the banana flip, and if neither of those were available, I'd settle for Twinkies.  So until I was about 11 years old, I called Corn Dogs "Twinkie Cakes with Ham Inside". I never did explain why I chose to call them this as a child... until now.

I stopped doing this after people at school would give me strange looks when I called "Corn Dog Day" "Twinkie Cakes with Ham Inside Day". I also realized there weren't actual dogs or puppies inside.

"You Call That What?!"

I would say, up until the age of 10, I was very extroverted. Hard to believe now, but it's true. I learned to keep my mouth shut at about that age when I started public school. Having been home-schooled until then, I finally got my way and got to go to school (which I had been begging for for quite some time). However, I shortly learned that my knowledge and understanding of things was either wrong or VERY different. Not necessarily because of home-schooling, but because of a wonderful thing called dyslexia (which I wouldn't learn until much later in life). It was impossible for my mom to home-school me since I refused to read or do anything with books or numbers (pretty much anything to do with schooling). Unfortunately, dyslexia doesn't just cause letters to move around, which is what it is mainly known for. There are many symptoms because it effects the part of the brain that deals with word organization/formation/memory of words and sentences/writing/spelling etc... Since many people associate these basic word skills with "intelligence", often someone who is dyslexic is labeled "stupid". However, dyslexia does not effect intelligence. In fact, most dyslexics have above average intelligence. Anyway, I thought I would preface this with some information in defense of my "stupidness" below.

Shortly after I started 5th grade, my teacher asked some biology questions. After pointing to her armpit, she asked "What is this called?" for which the correct answer would be "Armpit". I eagerly raised my hand because I "KNEW" the answer to this question. She called on me and I eagerly and confidently gave my answer. But it wasn't "armpit", no, instead I shouted "That's your Tickie!" Everyone looked at me with confused looks and said "You call that what???" and I explained "Since that's the main spot people get tickled, that's called the 'Tickie'..." I remember being completely shocked that I was wrong on this. The logic made complete sense:

You put Toast in the ToastER.
You dry things in the dryER.
When it rains, it's RainY.
You put fries in the fryER.

In my logic, if you took most verbs or nouns and added an "EE" or an "ER" sound to them, it became the thing that created that verb or noun. So the main tickling spot on the body is obviously be the "TickIE". I learned from observing what things sounded like around me and put 2 and 2 together. It just didn't equal 4.

I used this logic for many things before realizing it didn't work. For instance, an outlet was called a "ChordER" because you plugged chords into it. I remember being confused about lighters. A lightER to me was anything the created or produced light, including light bulbs. Needless to say, I had a long road of corrections ahead of me. I recieved many confused looks when I would say things like "Turn the lighter on!" or "Put it in the chorder"... They all made perfect sense to me, but usually ended up with someone saying "You call that what?!"

I've Been Cooking and Cleaning All Day!

Sometimes when Joel gets home from work he asks me "What did you do all day?" and I say "I've been cleaning and cooking all day..." He will look around and wonder what in the world I was cleaning and cooking since there are messes everywhere. My experience today explains this ever so clearly...

First, I decide to cook a nice rib dinner. I go to the co-op and they have two different kinds of beef ribs (I don't like pork) so I'm trying to figure out why one is expensive and one is cheap. Aren't all ribs the same? The butcher guy behind the counter asked me if I was finding what I was looking for. This would have been a good time to explain what I was looking for and get advice from someone who has a better understanding of meat. But I didn't want to appear like an idiot who had no idea what she was doing so I just said "Yes" and grabbed the cheaper of the two. I looked up how to cook them on the internet, followed the instructions appropriately and placed them in the oven to cook for about 3 hours. I had left over mashed potatoes I had cooked from the day before, so I set the oven timer to go off when I was supposed to put them in the oven to heat up (since we still do not have a microwave).

In the meantime, I decide to fix a mirror that had fallen apart during the move. Doing two things I've never done simultaneously is never a good idea. I get out some glue called "Gorilla Glue" in Joel's "Glue/Adhesive Box". Yes, he has an entire shoe-box devoted to glue and adhesives. This should have been my first clue that maybe I didn't know what I was doing, but I proceeded anyway. It took superman strength to squeeze out the glue, but I got enough gobs on the spots that I needed. The directions tell me to keep pressure on the glued areas for 4 hours. I didn't read that far before I started even though it's the next sentence. So I put the little bottle of the glue on the counter with the head hanging over the edge in case it had a drip on it (trying to protect my butcher block counter) and proceed to my next problem. The mirror is VERY heavy and large so I attempt to place it on the mantle above the fire place with the glued frame side down so there is some weight on the right side. This would have worked if it wasn't so heavy. I lost my grip and the frame comes apart again. I spend about 10 minutes fixing it and then hear the timer go off in the kitchen. Time to put the mashed potatoes in the oven.

When I get into the kitchen I realize that the glue had dripped onto the stainless steel drawers of the counter that I had placed it on. I try to rub it off with my finger nail, but it is already sticking so hard that I can't get it off. I try everything. Picking it with my nail, scrubbing it with a brush, dish soap, stainless steel cleaner, a different brush. Nothing works. So I decide to try to use oil. As I'm attempting that, I realize it's just spreading the glue around in a thinner layer which made it dry even faster. Then, I knock over the open bottle of oil that happens to spill all over the butcher block counter. Panicked, I clean that up as fast as I can since that is the one thing that will stain the butcher block (glue being the only thing that can stain "Stainless" steel, I might add). Of course I happen to get each on the wrong surface right after another.

By this time 1/2 hour has gone by and the potatoes were never placed into the oven. So I place them in right away, but the oven is set so low to slow cook the ribs that I know they won't be done in time. After doing this, I realize that the glue I had picked off with my fingers has glued my fingernail to the skin of my finger. That is a very irritating sensation. I pick at that as long as I can, and now everything is done and dinner is ready (except the mashed potatoes). So I take the potatoes out of the oven and remember that the pyrex dishes we got (that the potatoes were conveniently already in) said that they could take high heat, even the microwave. So I decide to place them on the stove top burner for just a bit to get them warm. Why dirty another dish, right? After about 1.5 minutes I hear what sounds like a gunshot right in front of me. The bottom of the very thick pyrex dish has shattered into a million pieces (see photo below). I figured the potatoes on the very top of the mound were still good. After all, I actually took the time to make gravy from scratch and I really wanted to enjoy that effort.

I leave the shattered glass and about 80% of the potatoes on the stove top to cool and hide it under a large piece of tin foil so Joel doesn't notice it. I call Joel up for dinner and we start to eat. I start with the potatoes, and suddenly hit something crunchy. I spit it out, and of course it's a piece of glass. I have to tell Joel what I had done so he doesn't eat the potatoes which lead to a slew of questions that started with "Why...". So I had to sit through the redundant explanation about how you can't put pyrex on an open flame. Irritated, I snap with "Yeah, I don't want to talk about it, obviously I know that NOW." Then, we start to eat the ribs and realize that they are literally 99% fat. Ick. So we get about 3 bites each of meat from the ribs, the potatoes were thrown out, and there was only about 1 Cup of corn left to split between us. Time for a bowl of cereal!


After cleanup I told Joel about the glue and he said "You should have just let it dry completely and then scrapped it off, that's the best way to get glue off of metal..." Yet another thing that would have been nice to know before I made a giant mess of everything.

Lessons learned from this experience:

1.) Not all ribs are the same
2.) Read all of the directions before you start
3.) Don't try to remove glue with oil
4.) Don't put glass or pyrex on an open flame
5.) Don't eat food that is near shattered glass no matter how good the gravy is

Don't Put Bananas in the Refigerator

Another one that was a LONG time ago. My intentions were good. Wouldn't they keep longer in the fridge than sitting out on the counter? No, they turn black. Only payback is that you get yelled at for ruining perfectly good bananas that were just bought.

Never Use Dish Soap Instead of Dishwasher Soap

This seems obvious, but it's not. In my defense, this was a very long time ago...

After loading up the dishwasher, I realized we were out of dishwasher soap. So I thought "Dishwasher soap is liquid, dish soap is liquid, why not use dish soap in place of the dishwasher soap?" It seemed like a brilliant idea, and I even wondered why there were two separate soaps. Why not just buy one kind instead of two? I thought I was being pretty creative and put the dish soap in the dishwasher then proceeded to the basement to watch some TV.

About 1/2 hour later my dad walks upstairs and I hear a stream of about 30 loud swear words. I somehow knew whatever it was was my fault, so I didn't want to go upstairs. About 3 minutes later, I get called upstairs anyway and get asked this question "Did you put dish soap in the dishwasher!?" Hesitantly I said "Yeah, why?" and then looked into the kitchen. There was about 1 foot of suds on the floor in about a 5 foot radius and more spilling out of the sides of the dishwasher. After about 250 swear words later and being made to feel extremely stupid, I yelled "No one ever told me not to do that! How was I supposed to know this would happen!?"

I was then told to clean it up, which I did, but the cleanup was horrific since there couldn't be any residue from the condensed Dawn liquid soap in the dishwasher otherwise it would keep happening each time we did the dishes. I never made that mistake again.

Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me That!

Over the years I've had many experiences that were immediately followed by the afterthought of "Why didn't anyone tell me that!?" I decided to start documenting these on a blog instead of in my notebook. Some are rather embarrassing, but not really. Can one really be held accountable for not knowing things never told to them? I guess sometimes.